


On Parents

by shayera



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-18
Updated: 2011-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shayera/pseuds/shayera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because children ask questions. Even paradox meteor children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Parents

Be the Egbert boy.

Your name is John. You are seven years old, and you are watching a bad movie together with your Dad. And by bad, you mean really, really awesome. You only called it bad because that's what all the kids at school say, even though they have no idea what they're talking about.

The kids at school say a lot of weird things. There's one thing in particular that you have meant to ask about, except you keep forgetting because it's not really all that important. But this movie reminded you again, so you imagine you might as well go for it.

"Hey, Dad?" you ask as the credits roll. "Do I have a Mom?"

Dad blinks and adjusts his pipe in a very Dadly way. "Do you want one?"

"I dunno." You shrug and look down at your hands, because you have a Dad, and it's not like having one more fussy parent would make much of a difference, really. "It's just that everyone seems to have a Mom. Even in the movies." You gesture vaguely towards the TV screen. "And Don and Chris and Mandy says it's impossible not to have a Mom so I must have one somewhere. Like, a Mom that left or died or something. Is that true?"

"Well," Dad says, taking the pipe from his mouth and blowing a perfect ring of smoke that distracts you and almost makes you forget what you were asking about. But Dad continues. "If you're old enough to ask, you're old enough to know. You see, son, the stork usually delivers babies to a Dad and a Mom together, but in your case, the bird came to me alone. It's very simple."

"So I don't have a Mom." You nod. "Okay, that's what I thought!"

**

Some time later you bother your Dad in the kitchen, bringing up the subject again. You have new information gathered from your friends at school that casts doubt on Dad's story.

"Dad," you say, more confused than accusing, "Storks don't deliver babies. Babies grow inside a Mom, and then they pop out somehow, and I know this is true, because Doris' Mom was very fat and then she wasn't because then Doris had a baby brother. And Ms. Weller says everyone is born that way, even me. And Don says only stupid kids believe in stork delivery anyway." You frown and tilt your head, looking up at your Dad.

Dad snorts, and then he laughs, a very Dadly kind of laugh that makes you want to join in. He kneels down and pokes you on the nose. "Got you!"

"Oh. Was that a prank?"

"Yes!" Dad says, grinning. "I'm proud of you that you figured it out, son."

"So do I have a Mom?"

Dad makes a grimace. "Well, you were very tiny when you were born. So you didn't need to grow inside a Mom's stomach. Actually, you climbed out of my left nostril." He points at his large Dadly nose.

"Eww, gross!" You put your hands over your own nose in disgust, but you guess it makes as much sense as anything else.

**

It isn't until much, much later you breach the subject again. In time, you figure out that the nostril story has to have been a prank as well, but by then you also realize that Dad probably doesn't want to talk about it. And since it's truly not that important, you guess you can accept that.

You are on the couch, with the TV in front of you droning some pointless commercial, and your eyes drift away. They stop at that portrait of your Nanna over the fireplace – because what else is there to look at except for those hideous clown that Dad has scattered all over the living room? – when your curiosity finally gets the better of you. Even Dad had a Mom. Isn't it a bit silly that you don't have one?

You go to find your Dad, who turns out to be hidden away in the downstairs study. He's peering over some kind of documents, probably something clowny and incredibly boring.

"Daaad," you say, bouncing in into the room to take his mind from the boring stuff. "I want you to tell me something!"

"Something!" Dad shoots back with his usual impeccable timing. But he does look up from the documents.

You settle your arms on the desk opposite to Dad and look at him with a frown, trying to look very serious. "Tell me about my Mom."

Dad rolls his eyes. "You don't have one. You know that."

"Seriously, I don't want a story about storks or nostrils or anything else silly like the things you said when I was little. I just think it would be awesome to know what actually happened. I'm old enough, I'm almost nine!"

"So you are." Dad sighs and relights his pipe. "Alright, son, I'll tell you what actually happened."

You lean forwards in anticipation.

"You crashlanded on Earth on a meteor from space as a baby."

You make a pretty decent Facepalm x2 Combo and resign yourself to never finding out the truth on the matter.

 

* * *

 

Be the Lalonde girl.

Your name is Rose. You are eight years old, alone in your room, curled up on your bed with your arms wrapped around a pillow and listening to the sound of the river as it flows beneath your house. You love that sound. It's very comforting. Not that you would ever admit that much to your Mom, or if you do, you're definitely not going to mean it. You understand that loving things too openly or too honestly is just setting yourself up to be hurt, so that is to be avoided. Mom is a very good teacher when it comes to things like that.

Sometimes you speculate if your life might have been different if your father had had custody over you rather than your mother. You know that sometimes there are custody battles over children. But of course, you never heard anything to that effect about your own parents. In fact, you've never heard anything at all about your father. Logically you must have one, but he is nothing to you but an intriguing puzzle.

Knowing as you do how the world works, things would probably not have been any different on any level but the – what's the word? – superficial. Besides, he was probably just some guy who disappeared because he didn't want anything to do with Mom or you. That would make sense.

It's not something you think about a lot, but sometimes, like right now, you're in the mood to imagine the impossible. Your Dad could have been anyone or anything. Perhaps he was a zoologically dubious horrorterror from the dark reaches of the Furthest Ring. The thought makes you smile in a sort of grimdark way. Or perhaps he was a wise wizard who left because he had so many more important things to do, always planning to come back once he has the time. That could explain why your Mom keeps tormenting you with all these wizard figures all across the house. Or it would, if wizards were real and if she would ever do such a straightforward thing.

You are too occupied with your nonsensical thoughts to notice Mom's footsteps coming up the stairs, even though that tends to be something that alerts you. You don't notice until she opens the door to your room, some unsavory cocktail in one hand as always, and her eyes moving slowly over your room. You clench your teeth. You're not prepared for a motherly encounter right now, and most of all you'd like to just scream to her to get out. But anything of that sort would likely have the opposite effect.

"I see you're working hard on your homework," she says, eyeing your unopened schoolbag discarded on the floor. "Keep it up and you might amount to something some day. I'm proud of you."

"I'm glad you're taking an interest in my future," you retort, keeping your voice steady and your words snotty, trying not to hug the pillow harder. "I'll endeavor to grow up to be just like you. Perhaps I'll even get myself a bitchy daughter for company."

"Bitchy daughters are recommended," Mom says and takes a sip from her glass. "They do warm a mother's heart."

You would ask what brings her here, or if she only wanted to quip at you for no reason, but your interrupted line of thought has other plans. Since she's here, you might as well ask her. It's not like you have anything to lose. You smile pleasantly and choose your words with care. "I'm certain a pretty and intelligent woman such as you had no problem finding a man with whom to produce said daughter," you say. "It must have been a beautiful romance. Did he run away from you or did you run away from him?"

You didn't expect a straight answer, of course. But neither did you expect your Mom to frown as deeply as she does. Did you actually manage to step on a sore toe here? Score one for Rose, you guess.

"I know this is your way of being cute and childish," Mom says, eyes dangerously narrow, "But there are some things little girls are better off not knowing. And exactly how and why they were born is one of them." You catch a strange whiff of honesty in that statement, buried in the usual scornful tone, but that just makes you want to pry more.

"That bad?" you ask. "You mean I was not the child of a loving union? I am shocked and appalled." You manage a little snort.

"Of course you were not. You're my miracle child, why else would I love you so much?"

"Oh." You grimace and lean back. So that's how it's going to be. "I'm a Jesus child with no human father, is that it? I should have known. You're the very archetype of Virgin Mary."

"Naturally." Mom shrugs. "And you were the most adorable baby, spreading death and destruction with your screams and sulfur on your very first day on Earth. I am sure you regret that I stopped your rampage."

You nod solemnly. Apparently you are indeed half horrorterror. "Yes, I am sad that I never got to destroy the world as a baby, and I'll make sure to do better the next the I try."

Mom downs the rest of the cocktail in one gulp. "Rose," she says with a strange glimmer in her eyes, "Did you know why there is no life in our lake?"

"As a matter of fact, I do know," you reply. You read enough to be aware of the unusually large meteor that crashed into the lake eight years ago. On the same day as you were born, actually.

Mom smiles. "Good. Then I don't have to tell you."

You want to ask if Mom and you were by the lakeside when the meteor hit, and what if anything that has to do with your father, but annoyingly enough, you've now committed to 'knowing' this. Before you can think of a suitable way to resume questioning, Mom turns around and closes the door softly behind her. You sigh.

Nevermind then. You're not going to bring it up again. You're not going to give her the satisfaction of thinking that her riddles bother you. Perhaps you should get down on your homework.

 

* * *

 

Be the younger Strider.

Your name is Dave. You are seven years old and currently watching your Bro do the dishes after dinner. Not only does he do it to the beat of one his favorite bands – which so happens to be one of your favorite bands too, since everything he likes tends to be awesome, though sometimes in an ironically backwards way. That’s just one of the ways your Bro happens to be the most awesome bro in the history of bros. In any case, he's not only doing the dishes, he's having Lil' Cal do the drying, which is sweet to watch.

You're sure no other kid has anywhere near as cool a Bro as you do. Not just because your Bro is as inimitable as the goddamn Mona Lisa of super-speed rappers – you can only wish that you'll ever be as cool as him yourself – but because most kids doesn't seem to have bros at all. They just have parents. Some of them have brothers or sisters, but those are just more kids, nothing especially cool about them at all. You can't imagine living without Bro, and figure all of your classmates must live pretty sad lives.

However, sometimes a totally uncool kind of curiosity takes charge of you like a bully on the playground and makes you wonder about stupid things. Like how a couple of cool bros like the two of you can exist like this without any other relatives anywhere. You'll have to wean yourself from this totally less than awesome curiosity some day, but today is not that day.

"Hey Bro," you say, taking a few steps closer to him, but keeping a healthy distance in case he would go for a sneak attack. "Did we ever have parents?"

Bro doesn't miss a beat, and he certainly doesn't turn around. Cal drops the towel, though, and turns his wooden face towards you. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

When you were very small, you used to think Cal was actually moving and talking on his own, which used to creep you out. But once you found out that it was Bro making him seem alive with his absolutely chill moves, you realized how awesome it was. Everything your Bro does is awesome.

"Nah," you say, nodding ironically at Cal. You're getting your cool back. "Doesn't matter. I figure we just sprouted from a pile of old records like ninja mushrooms or something, am I right?"

Cal cackles, which is a funny sound. Bro is way too cool to laugh himself and Cal's laughter is like a scratched record on overdrive. "That's as true as it gets," he says and picks up the towel again.

**

Quite a long time later, after you have completely forgotten the matter, re-remembered it, spent some time considering the options and came to the conclusion that ninja mushrooms are unlikely even though it would be a totally fitting sick way to be born, you fall to the temptation to ask again. Bro is in the living room dashing out some seriously ill beats, so you pull out a chair and sit down on it backwards, arms wrapped around the back rest, looking at him. Your legs are much too short for this to be any comfortable, but it's way cooler than sitting on a chair like a regular chump.

You know that Bro notices you immediately, but it would be uncool to drop everything just for you, so he keeps playing for a few minutes before he puts his fingers to rest, leaving only the mixer beats on like a way cool backdrop. "'Sup, Dave?"

"I figure it's this way," you say without preamble. "Either our parents were the most cool pair of human beings in the history of chill to have kids like you and me and then they died. Or they were the conksuckiest tools that ever tooled who just happened to get lucky and then they ran away because they couldn't take the coolness. So which one is it?"

Bro just stares at you with no expression. Not that he ever has any expression, so that's not unusual, but usually he'd either have a rapt answer on his tongue already, or flat out ignore you. So the stare is weird.

"I hate to break this news to you, lil' bro," Bro says, finally, "But we're way too above the world to worry about things like parents. We don't have any, so deal with it."

"That's fine," you reply. "I don't really care either way. But, I mean, I know how babies are born, and there are usually parental units involved. And ours aren't involved any longer, obviously, so. It's not like I'm saying I'd like to have parents, I just think it would be nice to know where we've been, you know. Like knowing if the meat on the pizza used to be a cow or a pig or a rat or whatever. It doesn't matter in the end since pizza is pizza but most people would like to know, you know?"

"Alright," Bro says, playing a few quick notes on his keyboard before continuing. "The meat on your pizza used to be a burning rock from outer space. That's all there is to say on the matter." He picks up his beats again, filling the room with a sound so ill that it almost makes you forget the absolute dorkiness of his comic book reply. Which, when you think about it, was kind of cool in an ironic way.

 

* * *

 

Be the Harley lass.

Your name is Jade. You are nine years old, and you are currently in your greenhouse, absentmindedly surfing the internet on your lunchtop. Actually, you're just waiting for a certain name to show up on your chat client for the first time, because you know it will happen soon.

You haven't met another living human being in years. That's okay, though. You have no reason to be lonely. You have the most wonderful dog in the history of the Earth – probably literally, though you wouldn't really know since you've never met any other dogs. And of course, you also have your friends on Prospit whenever you go to sleep. They're not exactly human, but they're very nice people. There's one other human there, but he's asleep, so that probably doesn't count. Not until he wakes, at least.

You know of course that you're not the only human being alive. That would be silly. Most humans just aren't on your island, or on Prospit. For one thing, the internet is full of people putting up movies and blogs and drawings that tell you all you need to know about human society. But mostly, you know because you see it in your dreams. When Prospit's moon eclipses Skaia, you see the future, past and present flash by in the clouds.

You know a lot of things. For example, you know that you fell to the Earth on a meteor when you were a baby. You've found out that this isn't how most humans are born, which is weird, because meteors make so much more sense than Moms and Dads and pregnancies and whatever else the internet teaches you. Your Grandpa was the one who picked you up and took care of you. He's dead now, but he's perfectly taxidermied and standing right there in front of the fireplace, so you can see him any time.

You know so much that it doesn't strike you to wonder about the things you don't. One thing you know is that you are about to make some very good friends, very soon. Your eyes light up when you finally see the name "ghostyTrickster" logged into PesterChum.


End file.
